I have noticed in the past that sometimes I get frustrated when answering a scam call and tell them to remove my name from the list. They want to keep talking and convince you that this is a great deal and won’t take no for an answer. After I ask and thank them for removing my name and number, I just set the phone down. I can usually hear them talking and trying to get my attention for another several minutes. Eventually they hang up.
I always thought this was funny and was telling a friend about this. He once worked at a legit call center and it was policy to NEVER hang up on customers except in extreme situations such as when the person on the other end said something threatening or vile. Anyway, he said if you hung up, a loud alarm would sound at your station and supervisors would be notified. It was a BIG DEAL. He did this once with a threatening person. The alarm blared so everyone knew he hung up and the supervisors came running. They reviewed the recorded phone call and said he acted appropriately. He said there is no reason to believe that call centers run by scammers don’t operate the same exact way.
I once called out a scammer and they told me to hang up if I thought it was a fraud call. I was unaware of this fact about call centers and hung up but now just set the phone down and leave it for a while until THE SCAMMER hangs up.
So next time you get a scam phone call about your car warranty, student loans you haven’t had for decades, or whatever, just tell them to remove your name from the list and then thank them. Then just set the phone down. They might call back 3-4 times but eventually you get put on a scammer do not call list as you don’t bite and waste their time. The calls will stop for a while but of course it is only a matter of time until a new batch of calls starts coming. Maybe it will be about a car warranty but it might be about a home security system.
They’re not a legitimate company. They are scam artists that just want your credit card info. They have no desire to play by any rules.
The best defense is to NOT answer the call in the first place. Once you answer that tells them that this is a valid number. That number is then sold over and over again to all the other crooks.
Since virtually everyone has a cellphone, and few people have a landline, isnt it much simpler to look at who is calling and not answer any number you don’t recognize? If its a legit call, they’ll leave a message.
Do you think a call center of scammers in Whoknowsitstan has that policy? Any policy, other than steal from you?
The calls to my home phone (which I never answer) are 99.9% either cable ads, political ads, Medicare Advantage ads, obvious criminal scams (‘this is the IRS…’), or random call centers. I delete 1 to 4 of them daily.
When I moved states, I kept my cell number (and home number, too… VOIP phone) with an Ohio area code.
Since everyone that calls me from Ohio is in my contact list and is identified on my phone when they call, I know when it is a scammer or solicitation call.
With all phones having caller ID now I just don’t answer if I don’t know the number they can leave a message that I may 0r not call back.
Back be for retirement and be for all phones had caller ID it might have bee a work call but if it wasn’t I would do like you do either lay the phone down or just hang up.
Why would you do that ? Your phone is what you depend on for business so why would you tie up your phone and possibly miss a customer call . As soon as I realize that the call is not something I want to waste time on I just say No Thanks and hangup . How simple is that ?
I have both a FAX and phone modem .wav file on my laptop. if I’m on my laptop when I get a suspicious call I play one of them. Sometimes you can even hear them cursing.
It’s gotten so bad now, I just don’t answer, all calls go to voicemail. In days of yore I used that technique tho. Worked pretty good. I’d say mid-sentence: "oh, there’s somebody ringing the doorbell, I definitely want to hear the rest, hang on, I’ll be right back … " … phone placed on desk … I usually put the radio nearby so they’d at least have something to listen to … lol …
With having a business, I don’t have the luxury of not answering an “unknown” call. It just might be a good customer.
Also, I use a VOIP service for business. If one line is tied up, it just rolls over to the next available device. I can talk to people on my cell phone, laptops, or tablets, all through the same phone number. I do silence myself on the scammer line if I have another call coming in so they just hear silence. I don’t want any information getting to them that might be useful.
Sometimes legit callers are flagged as a possible scam or spam. If they leave a message and I can tell it is legit, I will call them back. Often it is just a robo message for car warranty, student loans, etc. and I just delete it.
The vast majority of people still have landlines. And that doesn’t stop what’s known as “Spoofing”. These crooks will call you with a number that is someone else’s. It’s against the law and done all the time. I’ve been called on my cell and the caller was my cell.
Yes, they will spoof a friend, neighbor, or family member as well if they have enough data on you. The big thing is that they try to at least have your area code and exchange spoofed. A lot of times my phone will ring once and then I see that the call was automatically rejected.
I live close to a military base so strange phone numbers from out of the area are common as well.
Either way, just setting the phone down and waiting for them to hang up seems to work well. Each one of these calls they make from overseas costs them money per call made and by the minute. You aren’t just taking the scammer away from being to call someone else and costing them indirectly. You are costing them money directly.
I once saw a Youtube video where some scam fighter took down a scam call center in India. They had people on the ground in India. Apparently a lot of Indians hate scammers because it gives the rest of them a bad name so some also join the fight. They had the place located and it looked like a small apartment building on a street corner. Observers could see workers coming in for shifts and the thing ran 24 hours a day. This makes sense since they are calling around the world to scam people in various countries.
The scam fighters figured out what VOIP service the scammers were using and what numbers were assigned. They started their own robo-spoofing of numbers. They would call the scammers, costing them a few cents per call and minute. The scammers would hang up and block the number but the scam fighters would just spoof a new number. Eventually the scammers decided to change their numbers but the scam fighters figured that out quickly and began targeting the new ones with incessant calls.
Eventually the head of the scam operation answered and the scam fighters told him they wouldn’t stop until the operation closed. The lines soon went dead and observers on the ground in India could see those in the building packing up and leaving.
I still have my landline, as well as a cellphone, but I think that whether someone has both services is somewhat dependent on the age of the person. Studies have shown that many–perhaps most–younger folks (presumably those in their 20s & 30s) have only cell phone service.
I think it also depends somewhat on where one lives. We still have many friends in new york city and only one still has a landline. One couple recently moved to a newish apartment building in Manhattan and the apartment has no phone jacks. They inquired of the building manager, and he informed them that Verizon did not serve the building.
My LL is part of a bundle, drop the LL, cost goes up. I keep it unplugged, occasionally use it to call my cellphone when I can’t find it. LL calls are displayed on my TV, all some form of telemarketing.
My parents dumped their landline a few years back. The cost was minimal with the package they had but it got to be such a nuisance with all the scam calls. No one else ever called it, just scammers, so they got rid of it.
My parents bought a car warranty with a car from the dealer one time and it actually paid off. Some part died right before the warranty expired and that just about paid for the warranty, minus interest of course. Of course the dealer was using a legit service but these types of things usually just generate profit for them.
